Justin DeHart, Strange Paths

In the past 100 years we have seen the rise of percussion instruments as equal contenders for musical attention in contemporary classical music. No longer do the strings, winds, and brass have a monopoly on musical eloquence. Of course the piano has been a critical instrument since its beginnings. But nowadays percussion ensembles, large percussion sections in orchestras and solo percussion works have become relatively frequent occurrences.

It is to the latter of the three possibilities that we turn today, to percussionist Justin DeHart's solo percussion recital disk, Strange Paths (Innova 849). Four works are featured, each with its own sound and way of proceeding.

Michael Gordon's "XV" (1998) features a set of tuned tom toms sounded in a series of contrasting velocities occurring simultaneously, weaving in and out of the matrix, and receiving accents intermittently to bring forward a given tom tone and velocity. It's an exercise in polyrhythmic density but in an ever-evolving steady-state that has minimalist overall coverage more than an African central fulcrum tempo. Partially because of the nature of the sound of the toms but also because of the tendency for patterns to interlock, it is in the lineage of Steve Reich seminal work Drumming, though a distant and autonomous relative, so to say.

Iannis Xenakis's "Psappha" (1975) makes pulsating but very much more differentiated use of toms and a bass drum, and what sounds like an African xylophone. As with many of Xenakis's works, there are zones of varying motives (and timbre families) that enter and exit periodically, in this case evolving into an ever more sparsely populated universe. Bell-tree chimes and other resonant metallic objects make their appearance towards the end, at the same time the dynamics and density change back to a more urgent and populous soundscape, concluding with a relatively climactic thrust of sound. This is bracing music!

Brian Ferneyhough's "Bone Alphabet" (1992) apparently follows with the same instrumentation and a different, more expressively accentuated overall series of many timbred phrases, becoming something like a linear piece for prepared piano, only each sound of course gets generated by either a separate instrument or pitch of an instrument. There are choices to be made by the soloist at every turn, so that every performance will sound differently. This one sounds very good indeed.

The recital concludes with a four-part work for vibraphone, Stuart Saunders Smith's "They Looked Like Strangers" (2009). It is a complex melodically-harmonically rich piece that has an improvisational/fantasia sort of feel to it. It is not an easy piece to play in parts; it has a piano-solo-like feel to it in terms of phrasing and trajectory. This work to me though quite pleasant to hear, is of lesser interest than the more dynamic preceding works. But perhaps that is only to say that it demands more of your undivided attention and requires a greater attentiveness to the various musico-syntactic continuities. The vibes have developed such a strong tradition in modern jazz that I might be a little spoiled by some of the innovating improvisers active and/or admired today, from Bobby Hutcherson on. Nevertheless this is music that has its say and does have something to say.

In the end Maestro DeHart shows great musicality, technical ability and a devotion to realizing each work with care and dramatic verve. It is a varied program that encapsulates the tendencies in solo percussion from the '70s onwards. It is also a most interesting and rewarding listen.

Michel Lambert, Journal des Episodes

Our assumptions about length and flow in music, like other everyday assumptions, usually only become obvious when challenged. So Wagner's Ring Cycle occupies so much time if performed as a whole, an audience may need to bring toothbrushes and pj's.

On the other end is the short work. Michel Lambert, composer-instrumentalist with a singular vision, wrote an ultra short symphonic work nearly every day for 92 days, between January 1st and July 1st, 1988. Some last only several seconds, a few 2-3 minutes, and most are somewhere in between. They are meant to be performed one after another with only a brief pause in between each.

In the version at hand Journal des Episodes (Rant 1244) we have a few realized for symphony orchestra and the rest taken on by a jazz piano trio of Lambert (drums), Alexandre Grogg (piano) and Guillame Bouchard (contrabass). The juxtaposition of modern classical motives and piano jazz performance puts the musical sequence in an interesting no-man's land of new music-jazz moderne. The trio is given leeway and improvisation enters the picture in one way or another throughout, which is fitting and sounds right.

The brief pieces, especially after you've heard the CD a few times, flow together in ways that begin to create a matrix of musical ideas in constant flux yet coming together as a whole in lived experience.

The motifs can be abstract or more forwardly song-like depending on the piano trio's interpretation, which by the way is very creative and multi-valent stylistically.

The combination of unusual score, symphonic appearances and piano trio interpretation makes for an intriguing, at times uncanny listening session. Somehow after a few times through the whole thing gives you a kind of satisfaction that you might get from a meal at a tapas bar, with well crafted mini-appetizers succeeding one another in rapid succession until you feel you've traveled pretty far, culinarily speaking, and that the trip was worth the effort. So with Journal des Episodes.

It's somehow very serious fun to jump from piece to piece. The trio is creative about it all and there is something to be creative about, after all.

Fascinating. Recommended!

Michael G. Cunningham, Gallery: Three Ballets and the Gastein Masterwork

Back when the world was younger and there were no CDs, downloads, wax cylinders or 33.3 RPM LPs, new music had to be heard in person, imagined/constructed in the mind or on the keyboard while examining a score, or dreamed about in some nether world we may never reach. Today it's much easier but that means in my case there may be 30 new composers, new works or at least new performances that reach my desk every week and it's up to me to decide what to cover and then what to say.

I am not complaining. It is a position that has its privileges but at the moment no tangible rewards. Still it gives me the chance to hear much music and that brings me joy. Today, for example, we have the composer Michael G. Cunningham and four of his orchestral works on the CD Gallery: Three Ballets and the Gastein Masterwork (Navona 5893).

What we have are quite reasonable run-throughs of works that have both movement and matter, substance and rhythmic propulsion. The three ballets, "Nyadina," "She" and "Chrysalis at Mardi Gras," have a kind of post-Stravinskian choreographability. They are modern sounding without entering avant garde territory, rich in musical imagery and good listening.

The final work in the program, "Gastein Masterwork," reaches in many ways that nether world of musical imagination that I alluded to earlier. It's termed in the press sheet that came with the CD "a 'prediction' of Schubert's lost work." And as such gives us a four-movement work in the classical Schubertian idiom, with a definite charm and forthright straightforwardness that Schubert himself might find appealing.

That in a nutshell is the music of Michael G. Cunningham as heard on the disk. He is a talent and the music is quite enjoyable.

Gesualdo, Sacrae Cantiones Liber secundus, Vocalconsort Berlin,

2013 marks the 400th anniversary of Gesualdo's death. To commemorate the anniversary we can expect a number of new recordings and performances throughout the world. Certainly the most notable to date is the Vocalconsort Berlin's recorded edition of the Sacrae Cantiones Liber secundus (Harmonia Mundi 902123). These ravishing motets in six or seven parts have for many centuries been missing the bassus and sextus parts.

James Wood spent three years reconstructing the parts so we can at last hear the full sonance of the Second Book for the first time. The Vocalconsort Berlin obliges with a sparkling performance that all who love Gesualdo will certainly take to heart. Those looking for dissonances galore will not find that as much in this series of works, but they will find the characteristic chromatic forays at peak emotional moments and the general harmonic-melodic way with counterpoint that made Gesualdo the daringly original master he was and give the attentive listener a treasure trove of vocal beauty.

James Wood and Vocalconsort Berlin offer up to us a full 70 minutes of virtually new Gesualdo in excellent sound. This is a treat, and a milestone!

Marga Richter, Poetic Images Beyond Poetry: Selected Works for Orchestra

Marga Richter, some time in the fifties, was off to a great start. A good number of her compositions were being recorded by the now long-defunct MGM Classical Records Division. Then what happened? All I know is that by the time I found many of those recordings in a used record store, she was a name I did not know at all. And yet the recordings showed a budding modern figure, a woman no less, with good ideas and a poetic sense of form.

I was forced to sell most of those recordings before I moved to my present location, but I missed them almost immediately.

Now we have an entire disk devoted to three orchestral works that date from the '70s, conducted by Gerard Schwarz, Poetic Images Beyond Poetry (Ravello 7867). They are the premiere recordings. And they show her mid-later period in a bright light.

The compositions have a high level of expressivity, an easy familiarity with the orchestra and an even brilliance of orchestration. "Out of the Shadows and Solitude" has a kind of dash to it. "Quantum Quirks of a Quick Quaint Quark" is a short piece, which serves as a good prelude to the half-hour "Spectral Chimes/Enshrouded Hills", which is in many ways the centerpiece of the set.

There is a very chromatic strain present in the works, especially the latter, where insistent minor second intervalic melodies form the central organizing motives.

It's a somber music, expressively and orchestrationally almost neo-romantic but harmonically quite modern. I am sometimes reminded of the music of Allan Pettersson, whose scores often had a quality of angst, even despair. But Ms. Richter's own vision shines through her later music nonetheless.

This is music of a very serious caste. It is broad and sweeping, very personal, and in its own way, brilliant. It sounds out the listeners today like a series of poems by Sylvia Plath or John Berryman, very articulate and very much of a complex mood. She is her own original self. Whether this is music you will like depends on what kind of person you are, I believe. There is a dark quality to it that stays in the mind long after the music has ended. She is a voice that should be heard.

I hope this recording opens the way to more performances and recordings of her works. I am keen to hear them in any case.

Weinberg, Symphony No 8 "Polish Flowers", Warsaw Philharmonic, Antoni Wit

There is much still that remains unexplored in the creative output of Mieczyslaw Weinberg (1919-1996). We have out now, for example, the World Premier recording of his Symphony No 8 "Polish Flowers" (1964) (Naxos 8.572873), an ambitious score for full orchestra, choir (the Warsaw Philharmonic Orchestra and Choir) and soloists (Rafal Bartminski, tenor, Magdalena Dobrowolska, soprano, and Ewa Marciniec, alto) all for this recording under the direction of conductor Antoni Wit.

The text uses passages from Julian Tuwim's epic poem "Polish Flowers" (hence the symphony's title) that express in somber terms some of Poland's tragic past and, at the time, uncertain future. Weinberg shades the symphony according to the subject matter and so this is one of his more dramatic scores, at times quite grim, other times hopeful, but always with a passion for his home country and its fate.

It seems incredible, given the scope and impact of the work, that it has never before been recorded in its entirety. As a transplanted Polish Jew in the Soviet Union, Weinberg addressing such issues in a full symphonic context might not have been especially welcomed in those days, and that may in part explain the lack of a release at the time. But nearly 50 years is a long time to wait! Then too this is a work that puts (necessarily) such weight on the vocal/textual components of the work that it does not meet typical symphonic expectations. Perhaps it's more a dramatic oratorio than a symphony? No matter.

Regardless there is enormous dramatic power in this work and that comes across very well in this recording. It is a cornerstone work from a composer we are only now getting to know systematically in the west. The Naxos edition is impeccably produced. I for one am quite glad it has been made available to us.

Benjamin Britten, The Sacred Choral Music, Choir of New College Oxford, Edward Higginbottom

Benjamin Britten on his 100th Centennial year, as one might have supposed, is receiving a goodly number of performances and recorded releases. Britten's choral writing was some of the most appealing and original that the past century had to offer. We are fortunate that for the occasion the impeccable Choir of New College Oxford under Edward Higgenbottom have recorded an encompassing 2-CD set of his Sacred Choral Music (Novum 1386).

There are gems to be heard here in definitive contemporary versions: the "Hymn to St. Cecilia," the "Te Deum in C," "A Ceremony of Carols," "Rejoice in the Lamb," the "Missa Brevis," and other works besides.

Britten of all composers in his day managed to inject life into sacred choral form while keeping just enough tradition in the music that there was continuity.

This is glorious music, performed with conviction and style, in first-rate sound. It's a great way to celebrate Britten's 100th!